Posts published September

On September 25, we announced that the Swedish Companies Registration Office has granted Transcom permission to execute a re-domiciliation of the parent company of the Transcom Group from Luxembourg to Sweden. The press release is available here. Let me give you a quick summary of what this means.

It all started in 1995

Transcom AB was originally set up in 1995 to provide customer service for Comviq’s mobile telephony customers in Sweden. Subsequently, Transcom Europe was formed to support expansion into new European markets. These two parallel Transcom organizations grew rapidly, and were merged at the end of March 2000 to form Transcom WorldWide S.A., headquartered in Luxembourg.

Moving the company to Sweden

Since 2001, Transcom has had its legal domicile in Luxembourg while being listed on a Swedish stock exchange. As a result of this set-up, the company has been bound to comply with regulations in both Luxembourg and Sweden. In order to align the legal domicile of the company with that of its owners (Transcom’s shareholders are predominantly based in Sweden), Transcom is planning to execute a re-domiciliation from Luxembourg to Sweden at the end of November 2014. If you are interested, you can find detailed information in this prospectus.

Benefits for our shareholders

Following the re-domiciliation to Sweden, general meetings of the shareholders will be held in Sweden rather than in Luxembourg. This will facilitate shareholder participation at general meetings. Furthermore, Transcom will no longer be bound by dual legal systems – Swedish and Luxemburgish – lowering costs and simplifying the execution of corporate actions.

Transcom’s listing set-up will also be simplified. The company today has its shares admitted to trading through Swedish Depository Receipts (SDRs). Following the re-domiciliation, the Transcom Group’s shares will be directly admitted to trading on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm, resulting in a simplified and less costly listing structure. In addition, there will no longer be two different share classes. One single class of shares will be established, offering the potential of increased liquidity.

Business as usual for our clients and their customers

While this re-domiciliation is a major change from the corporate governance and capital markets perspectives, it is business as usual from a business operations viewpoint. The new Swedish parent company of the Transcom Group (Transcom WorldWide AB) will take over all assets and liabilities of Transcom WorldWide S.A.

As always, we remain committed to delivering excellent service to our clients’ customers in a reliable, consistent and cost-effective way. Our mission is unchanged: Transcom enables companies to enhance their business performance by improving the experience of their customers.

The human being, like many other animals show daily in nature, has a great commercial potential. Thus, some species of birds evolved to have bright colors to help them find a mate; some primates beat their chests to instill fear in their rivals, and other species, when feeling threatened, triple their size to intimidate their enemies. The animals, in their natural state, “sell” themselves.

In humans, in addition, we must consider the social aspect. The human being is born, then grows and develops their emotional connections with their peers, looking for affection and acceptance. Thus, from the beginning of our lives, we will need to draw on certain “business skills” to achieve our goals.

All of us, since our childhood, have deployed our charms to convince our friends to play the game we wanted, or to go to the cinema and watch that movie… Even when growing older, we use our looks, our hair and our clothes to help us in being accepted and to feel closer to the social group that we want to belong to.

Who hasn’t convinced a friend to go out, when he or she didn’t want to do it, because we wanted to go to our favorite restaurant? Do we do these things right? And do we do it without thinking about it? Without any preparation? Sure, we all do those kind of things every day of our lives in a spontaneous way. We are using our sales skills!

At all times we are “selling” When you fix your hair, and choose what to wear, you’re selling your image. When you convince someone to go to a different place, restaurant, cinema, park, etc., you are “selling” your idea, your desire. When the children cry because they cannot achieve what they want, they are “selling” their despair.

Therefore, we can consider the human being as a social animal being born with a certain “selling capability”, which is used almost every day of our lives.

But these skills evolve as we grow. Our goals will change when we get older and therefore, our way of trying to get it will change as well. This ability evolves with us and although all of us can count on it, it is important to develop these skills to improve our results. Observing how others behave, learning from theirs and our mistakes, modifying our arguments, replicating the arguments that really work… This is our natural way to learn, to practice our “selling techniques”.

Then it is only a question of trust in our natural ability to make a natural step to specialize and become a professional salesperson.

Although we may be talking about an innate capability in the human being, it clearly includes an acquired component. That is why we talk about “sales techniques” at Transcom when we prepare our training courses. Because you need to practice in order to replicate the best techniques, to make mistakes and learn from them, and to be able to translate your ideas into the correct words and perfect voice intonation. It is only by working this way that you will achieve the confidence and energy necessary to become a professional living of, and for sales.

I have been in this industry for ten years, four top call center companies and five positions. I would have to say that I consider myself a veteran.

Those years I’ve devoted to working and ensuring that I play my part and that the rest do theirs too. Things do not always come our way, and things are always changing. We used to say that change is the only constant thing in this world. And yes, I’d say it holds so much truth especially in call centers. Stress is an understatement and quitting is always a thought that never happens.

As part of employee retention strategies, companies usually hold lavish and grand parties with famous celebrities and grand raffle. What a joy, at least for a few hours. People get drunk, wasted and party the night away. Yes, it was fun. Don’t get me wrong, I think we all deserve to let loose. But when hangover strikes the next morning, we tend to forget the essence of why we were there. For years, I got excited with these parties while the true meaning of the celebration got lost.

Last Sunday, it was different. For the first time, I understood why I chose to stay and why there was a need to celebrate. Ten years. Transcom has now been ten years in the business here in the Philippines. I have been here for just three years. I cannot take much credit for the success but I also felt successful. I saw the venue filled with all people wearing white tagging along with their family members.

It was a sight to see. I had, for the first time, brought my mom to celebrate with me and the feeling was fleeting. It was one of my proudest moments.

I may not have won anything but it felt like I gave my mom a chance to pin a ribbon on me on stage just by being there. It was heart-warming to build relationship with your bosses, peers and subordinates’ loved ones. Felt like we are one happy extended family.

After ten years, four top call center companies and five positions, I knew what we were celebrating. The effortless major retention strategy, the reason behind the ten years of success and beyond and the tag line we unconsciously live by – More than a Team we are Family.

Thank you for the opportunity of seeing things differently. May we have more of these to come J.

Since the beginning of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil the bright, colourful ambiance of Latin America seems to be in every single office. But it’s not only the colours black, red, gold that you can see on the walls, on the ceiling and in other decorations. No, you can find all kinds of flags and exotic emblems. It seems as if the multinational Group Transcom presents itself as multicultural as ever.

But the reason for this change is not only the FIFA World Cup. It’s a great campaign arranged by the Management of Transcom in Halle to let the positive atmosphere of the championship be part of the everyday work at Transcom. Therefore we made up our own championship to integrate this international feel into the working routine by organizing a betting game, a decoration competition and table football tournaments.

The first activity for our teams was to draw a ticket with the name of a football team participating in the world cup. This determined the name of the team for the next few months. Now they had the chance to win the first task by decorating their office as creatively as possible, of course thematically related to their football team.

Since the beginning of the first matches, all teams could prove their football knowledge every week in a betting game. But the employees didn’t bet all by themselves, they had to vote on the scores in their teams. In addition, every Friday noon, they could demonstrate their table football skills by challenging the other teams. So every team could save points for the next weeks by working together and supporting each other.

During the championship, results were announced regularly. But after the thrilling finale of the FIFA World Cup, the teams were excited to find out about the final results of our championship. In a ceremony, the best three teams were awarded with a prize. Gift coupons for bowling and other activities were handed out, to reward the whole team for their effort and especially for their excellent teamwork.

Almost all teams were participating and you could tell they had a lot of fun. The campaign served its purpose, as it provided the employees with a break from their working routine and strengthened teamwork. All employees unleashed their competitive spirit, not only our football fans,

Our internal communication served as a good platform to inform our employees about the tasks and the results. Our Facebook page, on which we released impressions of our championship, got a lot of visits and likes from Transcom employees and even friends of employees who were fascinated with the great campaign.

The Baltics were severely hit by the financial crisis in 2008, but the region has made a remarkable recovery in the last few years. The implementation of the Euro in Estonia and Latvia has contributed to financial stability, a booming economy and a rise in productivity. As Lithuania will adopt the Euro in 2015, hopefully they will see the same positive outcome.

As for Transcom Baltic’s operations, we have had a strong positive development, both regarding growth and the range of near shore services we provide.

Transcom Estonia has increased its revenue by one third in the last five years, much of it driven by our near-shoring business. During the same period, we have expanded our multi-language offer and now provide customer care services in ten different languages: Estonian, Russian, Finnish, English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Italian, French and German.

Transcom’s growth development in Latvia has been even more impressive. While the revenue has increased by 60 percent since 2009, our international business has grown from three percent to an expected share of 50 percent this year. From our site in Riga, our 400 customer experience specialists now offer services in Latvian, Russian, English, German and all the Nordic languages.

In Lithuania we have offered near-shoring services since 2003. Since then we have increased the business significantly. Eleven years ago, we started with 12 agents offering service in English to one UK client, now 50 percent of our total workforce (nearly 300 employees) serve eight international clients in English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Polish, Russian, Estonian and Latvian languages.

Although local clients are as important to us as international clients, taking into account the size of the local market in the Baltic Region, it is inevitable for us to continue to look for new prospects from neighbouring countries.

How to find people with multilanguage skills

Can we find enough people who speak different languages? Sometimes it is a challenge as we are looking for a very high and professional language level. Almost all our people who are providing services in languages other than their mother tongue have lived, studied or worked abroad, and they have practiced their language in the native environment. We have also been very succesful in attracting native speakers from all over Europe. These people love to work in an international company like Transcom and appreciate our supportive, yet demanding atmosphere:

Our clients not only expect our people to speak the language well, they also expect them to be real customer experience specialists with the ability to understand customers’ needs and offer the best solutions. The nature of the service has changed – customers are no longer calling in to ask simple questions or place a simple order. They call or email to solve a complex problem. In the near future we expect more customers contacting us via chat and that we will have more interactions via Twitter and Facebook.

So the customer service world is changing and Transcom is happy to face this challenge!

One of Transcom Chile’s main priorities is to expand our local client base. Therefore, we are pleased to announce the launch of a new outbound service for a client within the financial sector.

The client is one of the leading financial institutions in Chile in terms of market share and by its financial strength and profitability. Our new client pays special attention to the quality of the service it provides to its customers. The new outbound service for accident insurance and medical emergencies was launched in mid-June.

Initially, the team consisted of nearly 40 people. However, following the successful launch of the project, and in view of the good results, our client requested 15 additional people for their team.

The hard work of our Product Specialists in terms of quality and training, good control of sales practices, and the close partnership with our client regarding support, motivation and education has resulted in the creation of a united team, prepared for delivering the best customer service and results possible.